Leko, this message bounced from your personal e-mail address, Otto.
Excerpts from mail: 28-Aug-100 Returned mail: User unknown by Mail D.
Subsystem at andrew
> Leko, from reading the task description (I haven't tried to solve the
> problem) it sounds like someting I would solve with functional
> programming. Your backgroung file can be put into a list of the form
>
> { {bckgd1,time1}, {bckgd2,time2},..........}
>
> from this it is not difficult to get the list
>
> { {(bckgr1+bckgd2)/2,time1,time2}, {(bckgd2+bckgd3)/2,time2,time3}, ..... }
>
> there enough automatic list processing commands in Mathematica to
> perform this task probably in several different ways. I recommend Power
> Programming in Mathematica - The Kernel, for a good description of those
> commands.
>
> You then have to selectively substract this list from the list
> representing the data. This is a little more involved because you may
> have to ask a question or two before you substract, but it is doable.
>
> I don't see enough pattern matching in this problem to suggest (at
> least at first glance) rule-based programming. I have used rule-based
> programming for simbolic things like reducing a big algebraic expression
> among objects that satisfy certain relations. In cases like that I find
> rule-based programming very useful in inputting the relations. Pattern
> matching also tends to use more time.
>
> Otto.